


A Life Flashing Before Your Eyes

by tamibrandt



Category: Alice in Chains
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:47:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26090629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamibrandt/pseuds/tamibrandt
Summary: This just came to me after watching past videos of Layne Staley over the years.  It's based on my own thoughts as Layne's internal dialogue of things he would have liked to tell Jerry Cantrell in his last moments.  I do NOT claim to know what his last thoughts were before he passed on.  This is just my own thoughts after watching old footage of him, knowing what he struggled with and his condition during and after MTV Unplugged in 1996.  When I think of his situation, how the record company, AIC management and press treated him, how the industry practically snubbed him and he rarely gets mentioned anymore, how he was left out of the Grammy 2002 memorial, how he died and how he was found, it haunts me and I didn't even know him personally.  So feel free to bitch at me for this internal thought that turned into FICTION.
Relationships: Jerry Cantrell/Layne Staley-Implied
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	A Life Flashing Before Your Eyes

_“I wish I could just hug you all . . . but, I’m not gonna!”_

Remember when we started Alice, Jerry? You came to Seattle with little money and didn’t have a place to stay. Mind you I was drunk, but I offered you a place to stay. Let you have my food, came up with ways to get you the guitars and gear you needed.

I liked you so much I set you up with a life where you couldn’t fail. I encouraged you to sing more because they were your lyrics. You should at least be able to sing your own lyrics.

You and I shared the vocals duties. We were a team: you and me against the world. **_We_** made Alice in Chains the baddest, hardest, grunge band there was in Seattle. Hell, Alice in Chains as a band name was even **_my_** band name, but it’s all yours now, isn’t it? It’s not even my band name anymore. You have control over everything. The writing, the singing, the name, it’s all yours now. I was more of a back up singer than I was the singer.

You want to know why I fucked up on _Sludge Factory_ so many times? It was because I looked out at _our_ friends in that audience and saw the record execs and they were all looking to you to drive the show that night. I’m sorry that I didn’t turn out to be what everyone wanted me to be.

Before my ATV accident, you and I were joined at the hip. When Demri thought I was screwing around behind her back on tour, in reality it because you and I were spending all our time together. We fed off each other. As much as you tell the press, you loved me and I was your best friend. Well, you were mine. I loved you. I loved seeing you become more confident as a singer, mature into the “Riff Master” of a guitar player. Now, you no longer need me.

You told a reporter that my playing with Mad Season was like someone else taking your girlfriend out. Well, I only went with Mad Season to begin with because you abandoned me and started working on songs where you didn’t need my input anymore and I was burying my feelings with heroin and crack until the guys in Mad Season barged into my condo and badgered me into playing with them.

You hadn’t been around since we finished the third album and I was drowning in my own depression and my band, my best friends, my brothers had drifted away. I really tried to get better with Mad Season. I really did. I poured my soul into songs like _Wake Up_ and _River_ _of Deceit_ , hoping you would hear them and realize what I’d been trying to tell you since the **_Dirt_** album.

I showed up to do the **_MTV Unplugged_** thing, even though my liver’s shot to hell and I hurt all over with being dope sick, but I got just high enough to get through it because **_you_** begged me to be there. I don’t even know why I was up on that stage, because everyone was looking to you as if you were the conductor of this band, not me, not **_us_**.

I guess I should say that I am sorry about how the KISS shows ended after that. Overdosing and all. I know I disappointed you yet again. And I’m sorry I crashed the party on _Rockline_ when I called in without checking with you first. I’m sorry for taking so long in the studio, trying to work my mindset up to get my voice just right. It took me hours of internally working it out in my head before I even decided it was good enough to open my mouth and let it out.

Well, I think we’re nearing the end here. I have one needle left. I gave you a life and set you up so you couldn’t fail. I just hope the next singer you choose to replace me is better than me in every way that I could never be for you.


End file.
